Journal of Sociolinguistics

Virtual Issue: Language and the City

The theme of this virtual issue—Language and the City—parallels the theme of the 2012 Sociolinguistics Symposium.

Contemporary sociolinguistics drew much of its early inspiration from the dynamic life of language in cities, whether the fine social stratification of phonetic variants or the creation of new styles out of the rich linguistic material encountered in urban life. This selection of work from the Journal of Sociolinguistics reminds us of the many ways in which we understand the sociology of cities through the close study of language. The opening article, which deals with the linguistic politics of a Berlin neighborhood, is also a tribute to the great city that will host the 19th Sociolinguistics Symposium.

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Commercial discourses, gentrification and citizens’ protest: The linguistic landscape of Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin
Uta Papen, 2012

Deutsch in Inner London and the animation of an instructed foreign language
Ben Rampton, 1999

Indexicality and experience: Exploring the meanings of /aw/-monophthongization in Pittsburgh
Barbara Johnstone and Scott F. Kiesling, 2008

/r/ and the construction of place identity on New York City's Lower East Side
Kara Becker, 2009

Urban pioneers in the making: Recontextualization and the emergence of the engaged resident in redeveloping communities
Csilla Weninger, 2009

Rhotacization and the ‘Beijing Smooth Operator’: The social meaning of a linguistic variable
Qing Zhang, 2008

Commodified language in Chinatown: A contextualized approach to linguistic landscape
Jennifer Leeman and Gabriella Modan, 2009

Strange bedfellows: Appropriations of a tainted urban dialect
Jürgen Jaspers, 2011

Rinkeby Swedish and semilingualism in language ideological debates: A Bourdieuean perspective
Christopher Stroud, 2004

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